Paul Gustard says Harlequins’ recent record against Bath will mean nothing when the two sides meet again in the Premiership this weekend.

Quins won both home and away against Stuart Hooper’s team in the Champions Cup pool stages this season, including a 25-19 victory on the road last month.

But with just ten backs at his disposal last weekend for the 29-15 defeat to London Irish, Gustard feels his injury-hit squad will have their work cut out if they are to take another result at the Rec.

“We are struggling,” he said.

“The hidden cost of injuries is the competitiveness in training and how realistic your opposition presents pictures to you.

“It’s one thing if you’ve got a Saili, a Tapuai, a Marchant, a Lang or a Penny to academy kids and a transition coach offering the same kind of pictures.

“It’s a bit of a challenge, but we find different ways to coach and different ways to get responses, and then we just crack on.

“We’re confident we can go there and get a result but Bath are a good team.

“The past two results don’t necessarily correlate.

“They’re not scoring loads of points at the moment but they’re not conceding a lot either and they’re slowly, steadily climbing the table.

“So they’re a good team and they’ve got a litany of talent.

“They look much more like their regular first team bar two or three internationals who have gone away and they’re going to be a tough challenge at the Rec.

“We’ll have to be at our very best, we’ll need a little bit of luck and see what team we can put together.

“We can be brave and courageous and show ambition but we also need a bit of talent out there as well."

After fielding a makeshift line-up in Quins' last outing, Gustard has been able to make six changes for the trip to Bath - with captain Chris Robshaw among those returning following illness.

Hooker Scott Baldwin, prop Simon Kerrod and lock Tevita Cavubati return to the scrum, while centre Tom Penny and scrum-half Danny Care are also back in the side.

Defeat to Irish left Quins with just one win from their last four league games, but Gustard feels there is no reason for concern.

He said: “We are in the middle of a pretty congested Premiership table.

“If we’d won at the weekend and all of the results gone our way, we’d be third or fourth so no one’s panicking.

“We’re not even halfway through the Premiership season yet.

“All we want to focus on is the next game, improve our performance, get the result that we want and then at the end of it we’ll see where we are.”